Spurs have light workout as they prepare for finishing road trip

The Spurs worked out for less than 40 minutes as a team Sunday morning before they took the afternoon off to prepare for the season-ending road trip.

Rookie forward Tiago Splitter was the most dedicated worker as he spent an extra 35 minutes after practice working on his free-throw stroke. At times, up to five members of the Spurs’ coaching staff watched and analyzed as Splitter tried to get the kinks out of his struggling form from the line.

The Spurs will not work on Monday, boarding a charter flight for the trip west for games against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night and at Phoenix on Wednesday.

Coach Gregg Popovich said all members of the team will travel on the upcoming trip and that he’s unsure of how his playing rotations will be for those two games.

“We haven’t thought about dealing with it any differently at this point,” Popovich said. “We’ll see as the games approach exactly what we might do.”

But if past history is any indication, Popovich has traditionally chosen to rest his older starters in late games of the season, particularly a season-ending one. In the Spurs’ final regular game last season at Dallas, Popovich gave Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan the night off. He also limited George Hill to five minutes as Garrett Temple, Keith Bogans and Ian Mahinmi all received extended playing time.

Ginobili said he’s not sure how his Popovich will approach the remaining games, but said the team will be ready — no matter who is in the lineup.

“You never want to go anywhere and feel bad about yourself,” Ginobili said. “We want to play good, do our best, knowing that you don’t have that sense of urgency that if you don’t win you are out of the playoffs or you lose two seeds.

“Then, it depends on Pop, if he does play some and does not play others. We don’t know yet. But I believe we will play the way we’ve always done: Whoever is on the court is going to play hard and try to win.”